They said my vulnerability
would be the death of me

my soft red heart, beating
away in a world of its own

my wild joy and
deep, deep sorrow

my ability to love in the face
of overwhelming odds

but I don’t think so

I feel like it’s the one thing
that makes me feel

alive

I stay up waiting
for a sign

maybe it is in
the sun rise

or the moon’s fall
as the stars start to fade

and my love wanes
with waiting

and maybe one day you will see

that I was standing here all along

waiting

waiting

waiting

my heart is a wild thing
walking the wilderness
searching for another
wanderer to call
my own

I have wasted years of my life
stumbling from one fire to another
and now I need a balm to heal
these burns

wild things long to be tamed, sometimes
and though I do not want a cage
I would **** for a pair of arms
to wrap themselves tightly around my body

After years of wandering alone
hearing mountains moan into
the sunset, uninhabited beaches
spread into the ocean like the
arch of the moon

I stand at your door,
sopping wet and weary
back bent from carrying eighty
litre backpacks across ancient
roads that only the locals
knew

I said to myself, I have found me

as the roots of the trees arched
around my feet, their rough arms
folding around me, the earth
moving to the beat of my heart
the wild bird song stinging
my eyes with tears

I said to myself, I have found me

but you stand their
arms outstretched
the laces of your shoes still untied,
(and it still infuriates me!)
the smell of vegetables, rudely unplanted
roasting in a metal ***

as my head moulds into your shoulder
like tar

No, you say,
you found your way back to me

another life is taken
hearts are breaking
bombs are being made
children laid to rest
the world is spinning
backwards
God's indifference
or inexistence
your country may send you
your pride may ignite you
the waving of flags may blind you
to the blood stains on the sand
to the cries of the mother's
being torn from their daughters,
to their sons being sent
to fight a senseless war
and it will happen all over again
and again
as long as humans, are humans
full of greed and power and an ability
to turn a blind ear to the cries of
human suffering

This is not my war

this struggle of hearts,
fighting for dominance

thinking there can only be one winner,
because that’s what life has taught us

love has one winner,
and the winner, victorious,
takes the very soul of the loser,

but no, I will not play this game,
with my silver dagger,
shining sharp as the stars

I will not plunge it into any man,
nor allow it to be turned inward,
into my own heart

I will not fight you to the death

I will give our love to the moon,
in the hopes that she will bring peace
to your restless soul

this thankless skin of yours

echoing like the call
of a thousand crows

under the shadow
of an unforgiving night

I have tried -

to cast a spell over your green,
spark-less eyes

but magic is wasted on you

Thunder roars around me
as I lay curled under
thick covers -
a cotton cocoon
where I am safe and
slight -
I am not your
average less than
nothing girl -
the shape of a cross,
a lie wrapped in
layers of the truth -
I took myself to the
ocean one night,
bruised feet touching
the waves -
I stood, shakily as
they rolled through me,
rocking me back to
the past

I wrote you a love letter
across the ocean

but the waves washed it away
as if it was flotsam

words that I thought
held the truth of my heart

had no substance at all

My skin cackles in the heat
black sand, like burning coals
to walk over, an ocean too still
to believe it is alive

This is the long drive home
the memory of a heartbeat on a
television screen, fading,
sits in the passenger seat

This is our nightly entertainment
we take dinner at six, our throats
hoarse from screaming silently
at stars, from asking God to
have mercy, from asking fate
to detour. Take a break, on us, we say,
but we do not pray

Anymore. What is prayer? But the dull rustling of thoughts, the sins of a mother who worked two jobs but couldn't make the rent that week.
What is prayer but the heavy thud
of a heart

a heartbeat. Breaking up over static,
signal failing, reception blurred. This is the end, so they say, 'do not resuscitate', my father signed his name in ink. In blood.

We drive. We do not cry. We walk across the fiery beach and drink from the the salt soaked sea, to feel, to prove,

We are alive.
We are alive.
We are alive.

As roots we grow

unsure of what is waiting for us

above the soil

we stretch out, trembling

trepidation clinging to us

like moss

yet still, we reach out

and when we sprout branches

we climb

(we climb)

I hope you've ****** the blood
dry from your wounds

the fruit of a woman's
words

led their by the promise
of a future

there would be a silver
ring wrapped around a finger

and twenty pairs of eyes
crying

tears falling onto white cotton
lap

children being shushed

girls being pushed into lilac
dresses

old ladies pressing lavender
between liver spots

fearful thirty somethings
clutching at stems

I hope it doesn't look like this
when you look back

I hope the sun shone and your
father wept

his little girl learning how to be
a woman

from the back of a mans hand

fingers trying not to rub off the ink
a signature

as it sets

tell me I am welcome
in the darkest corners
of your mind

tell me I am welcome
to rest my heart there

tell me I am welcome
to stay

we walk with our past
forever beneath our feet

threatening to erupt like a volcano
or spring back into life, like a vine

it is the stepping stones
that guide us
and the gravity the grounds us

as we walk,
our past and our future, collide

we see the whole of the journey
from birth the death
confronted with every detail of our existence

and still, we walk

we walk

what are the stars

except pinpricks in the sky

for each lover we have lost

each heart we weren’t able to tame

each soul our song didn’t reach

what are the stars

but permanent reminders of

our failures

a diamond in the rough -
I took a chance
ruby stained lips -
my hearts second glance

we painted the town as if
red was the colour of timidity
our shadows forever glowed
with a blue halo

but now we're older
past thirty, at least
and we're tired of chasing stars
being chased out of bars

"let's settle down"
you say
and I can imagine it
wild hearts - tamed by age and exhaustion
free spirits - locked in by doors and windows

but I've found my diamond
and will wear it on my heart
into old age and mundanity

wrinkled hands clinging tightly to each other
hot mugs of tea and newspapers on a Sundays
our last breath, shared

what if I'd been born
twenty years before you
and missed you

Hate - black hate -
moonless - starless
- deeper than your kisses
consumes me

what if this is really
all that love is

a limp handshake -
shattered illusions of
dreams

they still hound me.

Alice, you said -
what if it hurts?

What if makes your skin crawl?

What if? What if the trace of a fingernail
steals your soul and...

Emily, I said -
your soul is such an easy thing
to lose

daydreams

you woke me from

with wine soaked kisses
and sugar soft touches

fingers, painting our initials on my back

my spine a canvas for the heartsick
artist

and his muse

forsaking their hearts for an age old tale
locked together in a common fantasy

that this is what love looks like

I never wanted to read
the letters you left
me

black ink bleeding
across the page
like the letters on
tattoo'ed skin

that touched water too soon

I imagine the pen-
nib scratching, stinging
like a thousand, angry
bees

you're smoking cigarettes
they don't make anymore
and your yellowed fingers
remind me of caterpillars
that never made it
into butterflies

swollen with new life
and coloured ugly from
the effort of trying
to transform into
it

and failing

I never wanted to read
the letters you left
me

black ink bleeding
across the page
like the letters on
tattoo'ed skin

that touched water too soon

I imagine the pen-
nib scratching, stinging
like a thousand, angry
bees

you're smoking cigarettes
they don't make anymore
and your yellowed fingers
remind me of caterpillars
that never made it
to butterflies

swollen with new life
and coloured ugly from
the effort of trying
to transform into
it,

and failing

a stitch, to unpick
patching up my heart
arteries combusting
explosions of red hot anger

a scream, to echo
in the dusty chambers of the void

a hand to hold
knowing that everything that has a beginning,
has an end

yet still, we love

fiercely
ferociously
frantically

hoping there will be a star with our name on it
when the world implodes

She is eight
standing on the top step
staring at the stars
twinkling with the promise
of a new year

eyes now closed,
she drinks them in
lets the ***** of fire
warm her, the heat
of the flames burn
into her heart

in her head
a voice whispers
'make a wish'

without moving her lips
she swallows the
freezing darkness,
the air

M
A
K
E

M
E

T
H
I
N

she expels
the letters
like smoke
rings

let my hands
shake and bend
like dead twigs
in the breeze

my eyes to
retreat back
to safety

into secrets

my chest to shake
like a spider
undet a glass
trapped but safe
contained

'Please eat away this flesh'

She is eighteen now
and the years have changed her

yet not tamed the whisper
that beats like sea water
crashing into the rocks
that guard her thoughts

sitting rigid
on a hard red sofa
trying to keep her eyes dry

she watches the screen
that stands between her
and the rest of
the world

the only stars tonight
are the ones bouncing
off the glass

there is no air in here
with the three of us
eating the only thing
we still can

Christmas decorations
still standing and
watching, catching
the dust that's like
the splatter of cereal
over a breakfast bowl

we are supposed to be
in bed by eleven
with someone coming in,
a dark shadow, checking
that the windows are shut

but tonight
we are allowed to pretend
that we are part of this
world, beyond the television
screen, that still dances
and kisses strangers at
midnight

allowed to pretend that
the chimes of Big Ben
stir our hopes
that the explosions of
coloured flashes
scatter away our fears

in her head
a voice whispers
'make a wish'

without moving her lips
she sighs, fatness for
freedom or a prison
sentence of bones

that wished in herself
all those years
ago

The whips of time are chasing me

crashing against my back
until my skin splits and bleeds

there is no escaping their advances
torturing me to walk onwards
towards the winter of my life

when I was so settled in the summer, soaking up the sunshine
and loving the feel of my hair blowing
in the warm breeze

onwards
onwards
onwards

the whips of time are beating
out their drums

a chilling song that freezes my blood

my back is pouring, now
as I walk to their beat

and I know I must accept
my own death

before they force it
on me

In every whirlwind breath I take

in waves that contain
an absolute promise of freedom

in fire whose flames rise high
and tickle the sky

in forests that close in on me,
forcing me off course,
and leave my heart racing with panic

I long for your kiss
calming my lungs,
imagination and heart

I long for your kiss, completing me

I taste love
in the whiskey
that we share
to warm our blood
on this freezing
December night

my throat burning
with lust and
longing, our hands
touching, flickering
in the embers of a
dying fire

the stars a mirror
of our kisses,
echoing back
to us the passion
that we feel
rising in our
souls

Stay up all night
and whisper secrets
to my ear

let our star studded
sighs fill up
the night

let gazes between
this heart and
mine

flare like cannon
fire across the
sky

and let deep
lungfulls of love
raise our spirits
like whiskey kisses

breathing, believing
in ourselves when
we wake

In the end we are just
two people hanging off
the edge of a cliff,
the edge where your body
meets mine, burnt now,
charred black, like bread
you forgot you were baking,
in the oven of our hearts,
we sit, hand in hand, daring
to hope that our lives are
like a Phoenix, waiting
to rise from ashes,
these are the ashes that
they place in jars and watch
for decades, dusted
back to their stone
root, in these pastel
coloured pots we are
held, hands clasped,
trapped in the moment
before we fell into
the sea

I love you with
my whole heart

but my heart is
fractured

and these broken
pieces

don’t make a
whole

an incomplete life
can be made whole
by love

but a fractured love
can never be made whole
by a full life

work, drugs, money
are pale substitutes
for a welcoming
heart

bitter medicine
for the feel of another’s arms

I am incomplete
and searching for a love

unlike any I have ever known

a love to make me
whole

there’s a wild, hungry pain in my heart

that longs for your fingertips
to brush lightly through my hair

a reckless sorrow that longs
to scream at the moon, like a wolf
and find a place for its song among the stars

a sleepless malice that knows no bounds
of misery to inflict on my soul

wild heart, sweet sorrow, mad malice...

please add up the sum of my parts,
and leave me whole again

even if I am whole in misery

curled around the coldest nights -

with cigarettes and cheap whiskey
to offset the dreams that scream
until my ears bleed

my only regret is not gazing

longer

into the perilous ocean of your eyes,

if you dared let me in,

I could have been,
should have been,
would have been,

whole with you

Why am I running away?

you voice is soft
in my ear
each morning

whispers of love
and forever
and ever

you have never
shouted or made
me feel scared

Why am I running away?

your touch is gentle
as you caress
my back

each finger
drawing out
a heart

on my back
calming me
as your own

and I accepted
their imprints
as if they were
the fingerprints
of God

Why am I running away?

your eyes are darker
than midnight
and just as
mysterious

I lose myself
in them, each
night

searching for
answers,
answers
like

Why am I running away?

I hunt for death,

teethe bared like a wild dog
catching the scent of blood meat

I am half animal, feral
and free. Yet half human,
closed up and shy

This uncomfortable juxtaposition is full of flaws to hide in

My rage is scarlet and pulsing, like a blood vessel about to burst

But is that the wild dog in me, outhunted, or the wallflower wilting

The wilderness is wild
and dangerous

but so is my heart

whispering ghosts keep me up at night

begging for me to join their chorus

not knowing that I am meant to be

solid flesh and bone

for wolves to devour

in their manic blood thirst

hunger for fresh meat

I am meant to die

at the hands of wild things

as I have lived

myself

He turned wine into water
and took the sea
into his mouth -
salt filled and raging
wild with waves

but I am not a mermaid
and I do not sing a
siren song, to lure
him in

I smoked a cigarette
and waited for him
to turn that mouthful
back into wine

sharing an alcoholic
haze of memories
untangling

we are destined to be
one more sip away
from oblivion

It scares me when you smile at me,
white teeth remind me of scaling cliffs
pink lips are ribbons tied around a car crash tree

I am afraid of you, deathly afraid
as I wrap myself around you like a vine, holding you at your word

tightening the ropes around your heart as it beats out a rhythm to the pattern of my breaths

I hold each one in my mouth, circling it, like wine, into the crevasses
I spit it out, then
and forget the taste

but I can never forget
your pink lip, white teeth
smile

The white flesh of your right arm
covers my bones, warms my
bones until the calcium
cackles, lost between
stations. It is winter
now and we burn
wood in a fire to dry
our rain soaked clothes.
Our umbrellas bent with
the weight of the wind.
A macabre statue
of plastic and metal,
a modern art exhibition.
We eat soups and stews,
vegetables and meat
melting into a ***, The
smell of it turning our lips
upwards into a smile. I
loved you in the autumn,
it's true, but it is only now
that I feel at home in the heat
of your soul.

A winter romance,
of frozen fingers wrapped
around hot cocoa with extra
Sugar in cups with Disney
characters and chips along
the rim. Monday mornings
were for promises. we’d
drink less wine and you’d
smoke out in the garden,
where the frost lies on
the grass in a blanket
of ice and
I
Can
Feel
It
feel the chill of that
biting air in the way you
crawl inside me
as if I am hollow
without you
and the way you turn
you head afterwards
(it's the way
we sleep now)

A winter romance,
of frozen fingers wrapped
around hot cocoa with extra
Sugar in cups with Disney
characters and chips along
the rim. Monday mornings
were for promises. we’d
drink less wine and you’d
smoke out in the garden,
where the frost lies on
the grass in a blanket
of ice and
I
Can
Feel
It
feel the chill of that
biting air in the way you
crawl inside me
as if I am hollow
without you
and the way you turn
you head afterwards
(it's the way
we sleep now)

Spending cold winter days indoors,
I boil milk on a stove
to warm my stomachs
my hands clutched tight
around a hot mug

a restless urge to wander
and I find myself in the
snow covered garden

where I eat berrie,s recklessly
with little care as if
they are poisonous

self destruction is
inherent in me,
I go of on a whim
sometimes, a wild
wind of despair

I do not want to be
this cold, but there are
no flames hot enough
to thaw out the ice

that runs like
a spike through
my heart

I imagined we’d grow gray together
and take winter sun holidays
somewhere we could warm our bones

cut out coupons from newspapers
stacking up in a jam jar
next to the fruit bowl

you’d rent guidebooks out of the library
and I’d take evening classes
so that I could understand
black tied waiters

you’d find it cute and impressive
and you would hold my hand tightly
during take off

the plan was that we’d walk around
foreign supermarkets and guess
the contents of the cans

they’d be faded beach towels
and the sticky scent of tanning lotion

our antiquated skin would burn easily
if we didn't smother it

but I’m not sure it matters
anymore, fretting over factors

we already have tumors
growing like doubts in our chests

we have nurtured them,
tended to their hungers and thirst
until we have none of
our own

I imagined we’d grow gray together
and take winter sun holidays
somewhere we could warm our bones

cut out coupons from newspapers
stacking up in a jam jar
next to the fruit bowl

you’d rent guidebooks out of the library
and I’d take evening classes
so that I could understand
black tied waiters

you’d find it cute and impressive
and you would hold my hand tightly
during take off

the plan was that we’d walk around
foreign supermarkets and guess
the contents of the cans

they’d be faded beach towels
and the sticky scent of tanning lotion

our antiquated skin would burn easily
if we didn't smother it

but I’m not sure it matters
anymore, fretting over factors

we already have tumors
growing like doubts in our chests

we have nurtured them,
tended to their hungers and thirst
until we have none of
our own

Through winters I wonder,
boots laced up high,
containing each
step as I follow
your footprints

home

I saw in you
all the phases of
the moon

felt each constellation
mapped by your
fingertips on
my spine

you were cosmic
and our love
was a meteor shower
above a sleeping Earth

a quiet threat
that only the stars
had the wisdom to see

fierce fingers

trace a line from my spine
to my heart

where you sit
like a stranger

unknown to my kiss

and those fingers weave
a web of lies

to tempt you to forget me
without forgetting

or else cast a spell
to make you fall in love

without falling in love
(with me)

when we wake, I trace
the lines of your lips
with my lips, cherry
flavoured and empty of
questions

you breathed life into the death filled chasm
of my bones

matching moons with each kiss

buried by bitter bruises
the stain of forever on our skin

awkwardly caught between youth and age

luckless lovers

running from the demons we shared
with the stars

I live
inside these bones
a memory that rises
and grows in the vast
cavity of my chest

my heart ripped
our, now clenched
in the jaws
of a ravenous
wolf

it’s teeth tasting
blood, my blood,
as if it’s ageless
as if it has the
power to sustain
anything except

myself